


Keep Me With You, And Move On

by caityjay



Series: Touch the Ground [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Feelings, Implied/Referenced Suicide, It Gets Better Project, Jamie is a diva it is inevitable, M/M, Singing, pretty non-traditional IGB video
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-12
Updated: 2010-09-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 11:54:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1940070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caityjay/pseuds/caityjay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things stay with you forever, but they don't have to keep you from living.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep Me With You, And Move On

"Aaron?"

Aaron looked up to see Jamie leaning casually against the door frame. Scratch that— _mock_ casually.

"Hey, babe. What's up?"

The redhead took a deep breath and stared at the spot where the desk chair met the floor. "I was wondering if you could help me with something."

Now Aaron was suspicious. "Of course I will," he affirmed, standing and going to his boyfriend, smoothing his hands over the other boy's shoulders. "What's wrong?"

Jamie shook his head, but Aaron wasn't buying it. A heavy sigh confirmed his suspicion. "You know the 'It Gets Better' project?"

—

Jamie sat in front of the computer with his eyes closed, breathing deeply. Aaron had pulled in one of the chairs from the kitchen and was seated to his right, controlling the mouse. When he opened his eyes, Jamie saw only himself through the webcam, and behind him Aaron's two big bookshelves and his own signed _Les Mis_ poster. He snorted at the irony of that poster as the backdrop to the story he was about to tell. Aaron brought his free hand up to squeeze his. 

"Ready?"

He looked at the image of the poster just above his shoulder on the screen. "Just do it."

Aaron clicked the mouse, and Jamie took one last deep breath.

"Hi. My name is Jamie, I'm twenty-one years old, and I want to tell everyone watching this that it gets better.

"When I was in high school... I guess I was pretty popular, or at least I had quite a few friends. I was out, and proud, and frankly I was pretty forceful about it. If you didn't like me or my sexuality, basically I'd tell you to go screw yourself. I was bullied—kind of a lot, actually—but for the most part it rolled off my back. My dad is transgender, and my parents taught me since I was in preschool that I could—should—be who I was, and not let anyone tell me otherwise. So I got really good at it, I guess."

He took a breath. He'd thought about what he wanted to say, but wasn't sure how to get there. He looked up and saw the poster again.

"Five years ago, my family went on a trip to New York City. I was thrilled, and the highlight of the trip, for me at least, was when we got to see _Les Mis_ on Broadway. They got me that poster," he turned and pointed, leaning out of the way to the camera could get a shot of it. "It was amazing. And when we got back, I was a junior in high school. That was the greatest year of my life before college. It was when I met Elliot.

"Elliot... was not out. I discovered he was gay through some sort of twist in the stars—kind of a crazy long story that isn't really important. I respected his need to stay closeted, though. Or, well... I guess I thought I did? I wanted to, but I encouraged him to come out a lot. I just... having been out—and _accepted_ —pretty much my whole life, I guess I didn't really get why anyone would want to be closeted. He was shy, sweet... pretty much the opposite of me, I guess. And one day that winter, he told me he wanted to come out. I was obviously thrilled; we'd kind of been something of an item before, but it always felt to me like we had to be 'just friends' because he wasn't out, and him being out meant I could actually have a boyfriend, which was an idea I really liked, being the sappy romantic that I am. He came out first at school, where nothing really changed since he'd been hanging out a lot with me, anyway, and had been getting residual crap from the guys who liked to make fun of me just due to proximity, and our friends were of course supportive. Even coming out to his parents was pretty tame in retrospect; they're the 'we love you but not your sin' type. So... they weren't exactly pleased, but at least they weren't violent. They got distant, though, and Elliot and I started spending more time together. I was pissed at his parents. I took every opportunity to express my opinion of them and tell him where they could shove their stupid... 'moral values'.

"We were happy. Or... well, I was happy. And I thought he was happy, too. He acted like it. He told me he was." It wasn't until Aaron squeezed his hand again that Jamie's breath hitched. "But that summer, Elliot killed himself. He...." He had to stop and swallow, his eyes squinting shut against the tears he'd been fighting for the past hour and a half. He didn't open them as he continued, "He left two notes. Took his car, and... ran off the road into a tree. He—" he had to stop to suck in a breath again, but couldn't stop himself from crying anymore. "He said... he left a note for me, and he said... he told me he loved me. And that he was sorry." Jamie sobbed. Aaron reached over to embrace him, but he pushed the other boy away, shaking his head; he had to finish this. 

"I thought... I _still_ think, sometimes.... I blame myself. That I shouldn't have pushed him so hard, or that... that I just... just didn't say the right thing." He wiped the tears from his eyes, sniffed, and looked up into the camera. "So. I want to say some things to you guys. First of all..." he was still having to breathe deeply, pausing every few moments to keep from breaking down, "someone loves you. I don't care who it is, I don't care if it's just one person on Earth, but someone loves you... _so_ much. I guarantee that, if you died tomorrow, your death would absolutely devastate _at least_ one person, probably a lot more than that. And... and second. I wish... I wish I could know Elliot now. I don't know the man he was meant to be, because... because he never gave himself the chance to become that man. The chance to... to grow up, and... and be amazing. Because I'm sure... I know he would have been. He was a great kid. And I...." He closed his eyes again. He was rambling now.

"Anyway. I sort of... well. I never got to say goodbye to Elliot. He... his parents didn't... well, they wouldn't let me go to his funeral. I think... hell, yeah, they... they blamed me, too, I guess. But I think... well, I want to... I want to sing a song. From _Les Mis_. That... I think I really would've liked to sing at his funeral, if I could've been there. It's not... it's not hopeful. It's sad. And... and it hurts. And it's... it's angry. Which... which isn't really the point of this video, I guess, or... or it wasn't supposed to be. But I think... well, it... it really expresses how I felt. And how I still feel sometimes. About Elliot, and... and how he just... well, I'm going to sing it, I don't fucking... sorry... um, I don't care. I'm going to sing it."

He thought for a moment of asking Aaron to stop recording so he could get a grip, and maybe ask his boyfriend to accompany him on the keyboard, but decided ultimately to just get on with it. He cleared his throat, and sang. "I dreamed a dream in time gone by..."

—

Aaron stopped recording when the song ended; Jamie had managed to finish, but had lost most of his composure in the process. He let his lover cry into his shoulder for as long as he needed to.

When the sobs had quieted, Jamie lifted his head, sniffling and accepting a tissue from the offered box. "'m not done," he muttered. He blew his nose, and motioned for Aaron to start the recording again.

—

"Sorry," Jamie flashed a grin at the camera, glancing down at his boyfriend and squeezing his hand this time. "I didn't want to end like that. Because it _doesn't_ end like that." He pulled on Aaron's hand until he got the idea and leaned into the picture. "This is Aaron. I met him my first year in college, when we were roommates. We've been together three years, now. I'll let him tell his own story, but the point is," he looked over at Aaron and offered him a rare, soft, vulnerable, and truly happy smile, "it gets better."

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in 2010. This story is crucial to Jamie's narrative, and this was the format in which I wrote it, so no regrets. Sorry (not sorry) to get the song* stuck in your head.
> 
> *I Dreamed A Dream (Les Miserables)


End file.
